


Klaubatermann

by ChainSmokesPens



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Fantasy, Flash Fic, Science Fiction, Spaceships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28571655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChainSmokesPens/pseuds/ChainSmokesPens
Summary: Prompt: [WP] Human spacecraft have now been used to the point that every single on is haunted - Some by shades of those that fell defending them, some by actual demons and spectral monsters. It’s okay though - they like people and have become rather protective of their crew over the centuries.





	Klaubatermann

Argonaut sped through the cabins and halls as fast as the darkness could take him, clinging to the walls he washed over the fluorescent lights like a shadow.  
He could feel them all. He couldn't see them, but he could feel them.  
Dozens of heavy, metal-soled boots clacking along inside of him. They were likely anti-gravity countermeasures, so switching the quad-grav would be more of a hindrance to the crew than an aid.  
He'd made it to the cockpit, slipping through the air-tight door as his darkness coated the interior of the room like a fresh layer of paint. This wasn't all of the crew, but the captain was here. And that was good enough.  
The shade's form ran over the emergency glass and applied pressure. To members of the crew, it looked like a shadow without a source was breaking the glass.  
The captain stood from his seat and began to walk over. "Argo?"  
The glass shattered, the red lights flashed, the siren wailed.  
The foot steps within Argo's bowels became hasty, scattered. He sped over to the security cameras. Wispy tendrils of smoky shadow rose from the board to tamper with switches and buttons. After a few seconds, everyone in the cockpit could see on the display what the ship had felt.  
Fifty, sixty soldiers, heavily armed, storming throughout the interior. The crew watched in terror as one set a charge to Ensign Jensen's door, blowing it off its hinges, before storming in. Protocols on privacy dictated that camera's not be placed within the crew's quarters, but even obscured, the crew could see the flickering light of gunfire.  
And Argo could feel it. He could feel the ammunition ricocheting off of the walls of the room, each tap like a bee sting. He could feel Jensen's warm blood along the wall, as well as the weighted thump of his body hitting the floor.  
The captain was the first to act, getting on the intercom and rallying the crew. They were to take up arms and fight.  
Argo was the first out the door, the full second it needed to open up taking too long for his liking. He rushed through the halls, aiming to cut off the intruders at the point of entry. They'd spread out, but the bulk were still at the back of the ship. Beneath him, crew members were carrying crates of supplies toward the cockpit. And with that Argo knew immediately where to go next.  
The sickbay was blocked off by three chuckling soldiers, slamming the butts of their rifles into the door. "Come one, baby. Open up! I've got a splinter I want you to see."  
Argo rushed over them, the unsettling form of a shadow running along the ceiling unsettling the intruders.  
"Argo," Head Nurse Josephine said, standing protectively between the door and the huddle of nursing staff behind her, "what do you need?"  
Argo cracked open the cabinet and drawers, pushing medications and instruments onto the floor without concern.  
When he began to lift the computer, one of the male nurses spoke up "Okay, okay, we got it." He carefully grabbed the computer from the vapors supporting it. "Everybody grab what you can. Once Argo kills the fools outside we're gonna take everything to the cockpit."  
Leaving the sickbay and hovering outside of the room, killing is what Argo did next.  
As the soldiers inspected the black cloud above them, They shrieked at the screeching sound of a panel being torn open. One soldier fired at it instinctively, breaking a pipe.  
That made it easier for the shadow to pull it from the wall and skewer the men.  
Seeing them pinned, Josephine opened the door, grabbed their guns, and made her way to the cockpit. A few nurses went out of their way to step on the soldiers, their extended arms pleading for help, confused about what was happening.  
The next stop was the cafeteria.  
Flashing red lights, the zip of exchanging bullets, barricades formed from the tables, swearing. Argo descended in the center of the room in a gargantuan drop. When he hit the floor, he pushed the full length of invaders' barricade back into them, pinning them to the wall.  
He didn't stop pushing, even when the crew rose to open fire on their trapped enemies.  
When the legs of the tables broke, he continued to push the flats into them. He could feel their heartbeats fading against the wall. And he didn't move on until they all stopped.  
He found one group crouched around a corner, waiting for some unsuspecting victims to round it. Being immediately shrouded in darkness, they became the victims.  
One anxiety-given shot gave birth to many in retaliation. When there was only one man standing, the shade coiled around his neck before proceeding into his open mouth for good measure. He mixed and churned the man's insides. He made sure that all the unnecessary things, lungs, intestines, liver, heart, were blended and expelled before donning his new flesh suit.  
Picking the gun off the floor, he ambled down the hallways, picking off every trusting soldier he came across.  
Upon reaching the back of the ship, the point of the breach, he saw more companies preparing to press in. They were confused at the return of one of their soldiers, walking bizarrely and covered in blood. The confusion gave way to aggression when Argo began opening fire.  
The bullets riddled his meatsuit. He had no sensation when one of the suits legs was blown off, but he could feel the sting of their bullets as they struct the metal. Still, standing on one leg, he fired at the crowd.  
The crew was almost finished.  
His other leg was blown from under him. He continued firing.  
About eighty percent of the crew was in the cockpit now. But, Ensign Thompson was in the kitchen, cowering in a corner.  
When his left arm was blown off, handling the gun became nearly impossible. He extended his smoky form from the body to give his remaining arm support as he continued to fire.  
Ensign Kimberly had found Thompson. They were now both making their way to the cockpit.  
The right arm was decimated, the gun dropping to the floor in a dead hand. Argo kneeled, motionless, as a soldier approached him.  
Kimberly and Thompson were ambling down the hallway.  
The approaching soldier stowed his rifle, opting for a handgun instead. The end of the barrel sizzled with red heat.  
Kimberly and Thompson could see the door from where they stood. There was one more soldier waiting around the corner.  
The end of the barrel had turned blue.  
The man rounded the corner, surprising Kimberly, too occupied carrying Thompson to go for her gun. Fortunately for her, the soldier didn't surprise Thompson, who blew his head-matter out of the back of his helmet on sight.  
The barrel was white.  
The two stragglers made it into the cockpit.  
The soldier pulled the trigger, obliterating the head.  
From the cockpit, over the haste of buttons being clicked and supplies being dropped, there were sobs.  
Wracking, heart-breaking sobs.  
"Thank you, Argo!"  
"Please be safe."  
"We love you so much!"  
"You were one of the boys!"  
The cockpit detached from the ship and began to speed off.  
The limbless, headless torso before the soldiers began to jump and writhe, before exploding in cloth and metal and flesh and blood.  
That visceral explosion, was the fun part of what was to come.  
Guns raised as shadows climbed across the interior of the ship, and further, shooting out of the breach to cling to the few ships in Argo's wake. Bullets fired, fading into the black mist, not ricocheting like they had been. There was swearing, there was screaming, there were calls to retreat.  
Then the teeth sprouted. Some in neat rows, most not. Sharpened, obsidian canines nearly imperceptible among the oppressive darkness of Argo.  
One solider had his leg grabbed by a tendril, clawing for freedom as another came down like an axe to cut it off. One soldier had his foot penetrated, only to be killed when a bullet he'd fired was returned to him. One soldier leapt through the void, nearly making it to one of the tailing ships before a cruel tentacle smacked him off course, sending him spiraling downward into the eternal emptiness.  
For ten minutes, the silence of space was filled with the screams of foolhardy men.  
Afterwards, it was filled with the foreboding sounds of a masticating darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Due to copying and pasting across various locations, I had to spend a bad amount of time shifting this from being the enormous block of text it is on my DeviantArt. And even then the formatting isn't to my liking. I'll have to be more careful about stuff like that in the future.


End file.
